7. Chapter 7
Chapter seven
Tristan dropped into the armchair in his cabin and sat there, still as a gun after firing. The ship creaked around him. The sea slapped the hull with the indifferent rhythm of a thing that had never negotiated with a woman in its life. Lucky sea.
His heart had not yet settled. Absurd. He had boarded hostile decks through smoke thick enough to chew.
Yet Marguerite d’Ailes had stood in his companionway, wrapped in his blanket, and discussed becoming his mistress as if arranging a treaty between quarrelsome kingdoms, and his pulse still behaved like a drummer boy under his first bombardment.
Joint operations. God preserve him from clever women with cold hands and warm mouths. Only Marguerite d’Ailes could turn a proposition into a memorandum and leave him harder than the mainmast.
What a strange, magnificent woman.
A duller man would have celebrated. She had come aboard asking for passage and, through some mad alchemy of courage, pride, and diplomatic lunacy, had negotiated herself onto his ship.
He had tried to cut her off.
Instead, he had lashed her to him with his own rope.
Tristan leaned back and stared at the bracelet lying across his palm. The moonstones caught the dim cabin light in cool little sparks. A keepsake, he had called it last night. A hostage, if he were honest. Now it had become neither.
What was wrong with him? It was not like him to sit brooding over meanings.
He took prizes, secured them, and dealt with consequences.
She wanted Naples. He wanted her. The arrangement was clear enough.
He would carry her south, have her in his bed for the duration of the passage, and then put her ashore before she became another thing that had to be cut away.
His fingers closed around the bracelet.
The door opened, and Lorenzo came in with a folded paper in his hand and curiosity shining so brightly in his eyes it might have lit a powder magazine.
“Buonasera, fratello.”
“It is morning.”
“In Italy, somewhere, it is already a better hour.”
With a bow too elegant for a wardroom and too pleased with itself for a military vessel, he extended his hand.
“Here is the draft for the refitting order. The dockyard in Plymouth will receive Resolute, inspect her, prod her, insult her, and perhaps return her to us sometime before my grandchildren inherit Lombardy.”
Tristan held out his hand. The draft was neat. HMS Resolute was to be sent to Plymouth for full inspection and refitting. The captain would remain ashore in Brighton pending further orders. Delays justified by hull condition, crew readiness, and necessary stores.
Lies looked better in Lorenzo’s good handwriting. Tristan ripped the paper cleanly in two. Lorenzo blinked.
Tristan tore it again, rose, crossed to the stern window, and flung the pieces out. They scattered in the wind, white against the gray water, then vanished beneath the ship’s wake.
“Prepare to weigh anchor tomorrow.”
Lorenzo was speechless. Tristan didn’t know he had it in him.
Then Lorenzo put both hands on his hips, which was an Italian method of declaring war without troubling the artillery. “But I thought we were keeping the goose in the bush.”
Tristan exhaled. “One beats around the bush.”
“Yes, but why would one beat a bush? What has the bush done? In my version, there is a goose, which gives the matter purpose.”
Tristan lifted his left eyebrow.
Lorenzo shook his head. “Never mind. I thought we were staying.”
Tristan stretched his arms above his head because his body had too much heat in it, and he would not pace like a boy. His shoulders cracked. His shirt pulled tight across his chest. “Plans change.”
“Ah.” Lorenzo narrowed his eyes. “The usual Blackmere eloquence. A whole opera in two words and neither of them useful. Has this sudden change of plans anything to do with a certain siren we rescued from the ropes?”
“No.”
Lorenzo smiled. “That no arrived so quickly it left hoofprints.”
“That is also not an expression.”
“It should be. Fast things deserve evidence.”
Tristan crossed his arms. “You have your orders, Lieutenant.”
His brother’s smile faded, and he stepped back into formality. For all his gestures, all his words, all his absurd insistence on feeling aloud, Lorenzo could obey. He had proved that over twelve months of rough weather, poor assignments, and Tristan’s colder moods.
He bowed curtly. “As you command, Captain.”
The title landed wrong. Exactly what Tristan had demanded of him, and somehow it scraped like a blade going in under the ribs.
Lorenzo’s shoulders remained straight as he walked away, but the brightness had gone from him, and the sight of it left a sour taste in Tristan’s mouth.
He told himself the boy would learn of Marguerite soon enough.
The whole ship would, when she came aboard.
Tristan exhaled through his nose. “If you must know—”
Lorenzo whirled.
“I always must know.” Lorenzo’s grin returned at full sail. “It is among my finer qualities.”
Tristan should not have felt the knot behind his ribs loosen. He looked toward the stern windows instead. “Miss Marguerite d’Ailes will be joining us for the crossing.”
Lorenzo’s eyes widened. “Marguerite.”
“Do not sound as if you have tasted the name.”
“I have. It is a beautiful name. Marguerite. A flower with a French accent and dangerous ankles.” Lorenzo clasped his hands once. “I like her already.”
“She will be a passenger,” Tristan said, his voice sounding controlled, but barely.
“Of course.” Lorenzo’s brows rose, but he had enough sense, or enough survival instinct, not to smile.
“A passenger who arrives by ladder, reverses your sailing orders, and makes you tear official documents into the sea. Very ordinary. Shall I have the men prepare the usual passenger cannon salute, or would that alarm the wet slippers?”
Tristan gave him a flat look. “I gave her the captain’s cabin.”
Lorenzo stilled. “You gave her your cabin.”
“She cannot be lodged among the men.”
“Naturally. Especially after being hauled over the side of a frigate while several sailors discovered religion in the rigging.”
Tristan ignored that. “I will take one of the cabins off the wardroom.”
Lorenzo’s face changed. Amusement widened into hope, and hope was worse than amusement because it had no discipline at all.
“There is space in mine,” he said at once.
“I did not ask.”
“You looked at me in a brotherly manner.”
“I looked at you because you were standing there.”
“In my experience, with you, this is intimacy.” Lorenzo’s grin opened wider. “I will make space. Never fear. I have very few possessions. Several shirts, two pistols, one excellent razor, three books, a few bottles of wine, and the letters from my mother.”
“I require a berth, not a household inventory. Do not make this into an occasion.”
“My only brother has chosen to share my cabin after a year of pretending I am an administrative accident. It is already an occasion.” Lorenzo lifted both hands when Tristan’s eyes narrowed.
“A small occasion. A naval occasion. Very restrained. I shall not invite musicians because we are English now and don’t appreciate opera. ”
“You are not English.”
“Thank God, or I too would express joy by asking for another report.”
Tristan should have reprimanded him. Instead, he looked down at the chart and felt, with considerable irritation, the edge of his mouth move. “Have the crew speed preparations. Stores aboard by evening. Fresh water. Additional blankets. Whatever women require.”
Lorenzo’s eyes brightened again. “Women require many things.”
Tristan sighed. “It becomes more complicated by the moment.”
“That is because you are mistaking life for a problem to be solved.” Lorenzo rested one hand on the doorframe. “Sometimes, fratello, it is only a thing to be lived.”
“Go.”
Lorenzo’s smile was gentler now and therefore more dangerous. “At once, Captain.”
He stepped into the passage, then leaned back in. “One question. Is Miss Marguerite d’Ailes the cat in the soup?”
Tristan picked up the nearest object, which happened to be a compass divider. Lorenzo vanished before it flew.
His voice carried back down the passage. “I will alert the crew!”
A moment later, he began to sing. It was Italian, of course.
Some ridiculous scrap of melody about a beautiful journey.
La bella giornata. The sound moved down the passage and through the ship.
Men answered with calls. Boots struck overhead.
Orders began to pass. HMS Resolute, condemned to Plymouth an hour ago, woke beneath Tristan’s feet like a beast roused for sea.
Tristan stood alone in his cabin, listening. Then he drew the bracelet from his pocket once more. His smile came slowly. The voyage to Naples, he suspected, would be beautiful indeed.